Chapter XLV
The Calton Jail—Opening of Waterloo Place—Removal of Old Tolbooth—Scott purchases Land at Abbotsford—Professional Income—Correspondence with Byron—Anecdote of the ‘Flitting’ from Ashestiel.
In 1808-10 the new prison on the Calton Hill was built. It stands on a magnificent site, the old ‘Doo Craig.’ All will agree with Lord Cockburn’s remark on the ‘undoubted bad taste’ of devoting that glorious eminence, which ought to have had one of our noblest buildings, to a jail. The east end of Princes Street was at that time closed in by a line of mean houses running north and south. Beyond this all to the east was occupied by the burying-ground, of which the south portion is still maintained. The only access to the hill on this side was to go down to the foot of Leith Street, and then climb ‘the steep, narrow, stinking, spiral street still to be seen there.’ The necessity for an easy access to the jail led to the construction of Waterloo Bridge. The blocking houses were, of course, removed, and a level road carried along to the Calton Hill. ‘The effect,’ says the author of the Memorials, ‘was like the drawing up of the curtain in a theatre. But the bridge would never have been where it is except for the jail. The lieges were taxed for the prison; and luckily few of them were aware that they were also taxed for the bridge as the prison’s access. In all this magnificent improvement, which in truth gave us the hill and all its decoration, there was scarcely one particle of prospective taste. The houses alongside the bridge were made handsome by the speculators for their own interest; but the general effect of the new level opening into Princes Street, and its consequences, were planned or foreseen by nobody.’
In a few years after the erection of the Calton Jail, the Old Tolbooth, the ‘Heart of Midlothian,’ was removed. Had it been preserved, it would have been the prize relic of historical antiquity in Scotland. ‘Was it not for many years the place in which the Scottish parliament met? Was it not James’s place of refuge, when the mob, inflamed by a seditious preacher, broke forth on him with the cries of “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon—bring forth the wicked Haman”?’ It stood, ‘as is well known to all men,’ near the Cathedral, in the very middle of the High Street, and the purpose of widening the street and opening up the Cathedral was the excuse for its demolition. Scott describes it as ‘antique in form, gloomy and haggard in aspect, its black stanchioned windows opening through its dingy walls like the apertures of a hearse.’ Cockburn speaks of it as a most atrocious jail, the very breath of which almost struck down any stranger who entered its dismal door; and as ill-placed as possible, without one inch of ground beyond its black and horrid walls. And these walls were very small; the entire hole being filled with little dark cells; heavy manacles the only security; airless, waterless, drainless; a living grave. But yet I wish the building had been spared.’ The only memorial of it now is a heart in the street formed of particoloured stones, showing where the door of the prison stood. At Abbotsford may be seen, decorating the entrance of the kitchen court, the stones of the old gateway, and also the door itself with its ponderous fastenings.
In the summer of 1811 Scott made his first purchase of land at Abbotsford. The name was taken from a ford in the Tweed just above the influx of Gala Water. The whole of the lands round there had at one time belonged to the Abbey of Melrose. The property had sunk into a state of great neglect under an absentee owner. The land was neither drained, properly enclosed, nor even fully reclaimed. The house was small, with a kailyard at one end and a barn at the other. But Scott in his mind’s eye already saw it all as he intended it to be. With boyish delight in the prospect of realising his one innocent ambition, he writes to his brother-in-law: ‘I have bought a property extending along the banks of the River Tweed for about half a mile. This is the greatest incident which has lately taken place in our domestic concerns, and I assure you we are not a little proud of being greeted as laird and lady of Abbotsford. We will give a grand gala when we take possession of it, and as we are very clannish in this corner, all the Scotts in the country, from the Duke to the peasant, shall dance on the green to the bagpipes, and drink whisky punch.’
At the beginning of the next year, January 1812, Scott came into his salary as Clerk of Session. He had now a professional income of £1600 a year. Why, then, was he not to buy land and become a laird?
In this year began that correspondence with Byron which connects so pleasantly the names of the two most popular poets of the day. In one letter he mentions that he was staying in the gardener’s hut at Abbotsford. Alterations were going on apace, and besides raising the roof and projecting some of the lower windows, a rustic porch, a supplemental cottage at one end, and a fountain to the south, soon made their appearance. Here is the ‘laird’s’ amusing account of his ‘flitting’ from Ashestiel: ‘The neighbours have been much delighted with the procession of my furniture, in which old swords, bows, targets, and lances made a very conspicuous show. A family of turkeys was accommodated within the helmet of some preux chevalier of ancient border fame; and the very cows, for aught I know, were bearing banners and muskets. I assure your ladyship that this caravan, attended by a dozen of ragged rosy peasant children, carrying fishing-rods and spears, and leading ponies, greyhounds, and spaniels, would, as it crossed the Tweed, have furnished no bad subject for the pencil, and really reminded me of the gypsey groups of Callot upon their march.’